Wang, Lang
- Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Modern agriculture must sustain high productivity while reducing its environmental footprint. Two promising strategies are the use of perennial grain crops, which provide ecosystem benefits such as deep roots and reduced soil erosion compared with annual crops, and intercropping, which can enhance resource-use efficiency through species complementarity. Their combination, perennial grain intercrops, has strong potential for sustainable intensification, although possibly at the cost of reduced yields. This potential tradeoff between sustainability gains and yield penalties, as well as the performance of such systems under climatic conditions, remain largely unexplored. Processbased crop models offer a way to assess the benefits and drawbacks of such cropping systems under varying climatic and management conditions, yet no existing model fully captures their unique dynamics. This essay reviews 15 modeling studies on mixed cropping systems, including intercropping, that involve perennials, although not necessarily grain crops, and identify which models include descriptions of the key components necessary to describe perennial grain intercrops: light and soil resource competition, rooting depth, soil carbon–nitrogen cycling, overwintering, and regrowth after winter. I show that, while most models include the core mechanisms needed for perennial intercropping, their implementations fall short for perennial grains. In particular, root dynamics, deep-soil resource feedbacks, survival over winter, and the dual-use allocation trade-off between grain and biomass remain poorly represented. Addressing these limitations requires integrating dynamic sink functions and multi-year root dynamics into existing process-based frameworks. Overcoming the current data bottleneck through a targeted, iterative experimental and modeling approach will unlock the full potential of these tools to design resilient, sustainable perennial grain intercropping systems.
Keywords
perennial grain crops; intercropping systems; crop model
Published in
Introductory research essay (Department of Ecology, SLU)
2026
Publisher: Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Agricultural Science
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.54612/a.4prn1cj1ab
- eISBN: 978-91-8124-299-7
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/146587